It is self-evident that Labour Party, LP, has been rejuvenated and brought to national reckoning. The horizon brightened for the party from May, 2022, when Mr. Peter Obi ported to it and struck a chord with the youths, who are earnestly in search of a messiah. Getting to emerge as the presidential flag bearer was reportedly fixed by the generals, who equally forced Yusuf Datti Baba-Ahmed on him, as vice.
LP is becoming the refuge for marginalised politicians, offering them a platform to contest elections. Olusegun Mimiko, former governor of Ondo state, blazed the trail in 2007, when he decamped from the Peoples Democratic Party PDP, to LP and defeated Olusegun Agagu, the incumbent governor, even though it took him two years of legal tussle before taking office.
Jonathan Asake must be ooking up to Mimiko as inspiration to upset PDP and the All Progressives Congress, APC, the two dominant parties in the 2023 elections.
Basking in its newfound relevance, the hitherto dormant party is making political waves, and threatening to dethrone the ruling APC, not only in Kaduna state, but also Aso Rock.
One of the states where LP can cause a stir and turn the table is Kaduna state, where the Rt. Honourable Jonathan Asake, the former president of the Southern Kaduna Peoples Union, SOKAPU, got the nod to fly its flag in the 2023 gubernatorial election. He is fit, capable and very popular among his kith and kins in the Southern Kaduna axis, who have been clamouring for power shift. The average Southern Kaduna citizen believes that they have been marginalised by their Northern brothers. The spokesman of Isa Ashiru Kudan, Yakubu Lere, in a Facebook post, derided the area as having become politically inconsequential. These sentiments are what make the Asake candidacy very dangerous.
The people have further been deeply angered by the claims of the Ashiru Kudan camp, that he has better experience than Asake. They questioned the middle level experience of Isa Ashiru Kudan at the former Kaduna State Revenue Board, which he left in questionable circumstances and certificates, subject of a court case, between Isa Ashiru Kudan and Mohammed Bello, who accused him of parading fake certificates. To Asake and his supporters, any comparison with Isa Ashiru Kudan is considered an insult.
“Comrade” Jonathan Asake’s entry into the governorship contest has no doubt altered the “settled” permutations, that it would be a two horse race, between the ruling APC and the opposition PDP. Suddenly, the LP, that was not factored into the equation some months back, is threatening to cause an upset.
Indeed, Asake is highly primed to make a serious impact in the electoral map of Kaduna state in 2023. Relatively young, agile and well educated (he holds a Master of Science in Electronics Communication), the LP candidate is expected to attract massive support of voters in Southern Kaduna and from the two other zones especially Kaduna Central. What he has going for him is his relentless campaign for a better deal for his “people”, both as member for Zango-Kataf/Jaba federal constituency, and as president of SOKAPU, acronym of the loose union of the many ethnic rationalities in the Southern Kaduna senatorial district.
In the 2023 polls, Asake may also benefit from a possible support of voters from other parts of the country resident in every nook and cranny of Kaduna state, particularly those sympathetic to the aspiration of the LP presidential flagbearer, Peter Obi, including yours truly, the author of this piece. If these permutations come into play, he might as well turn out to be the idiomatic dark horse in the race to occupy the Kaduna State Government House, after Governor Nasir El-Rufai.
Understandably, the likelihood of LP upset, with massive support in the Southern Kaduna flank, is a cause for serious concern to Uba Sani and Isa Ashiru Kudan. Though Isa Ashiru Kudan believes that the Asake candidacy has thrown a spanner in the works for him and the PDP, causing them to panic, the fact remains that Uba Sani might have lost more, considering the inroads the APC has made into the zone, controlling five of eight local government areas.
But Isa Ashiru Kudan has every reason to fret, as the Southern Kaduna had previously been the traditional support base of the PDP in the North-west zone since the return of democracy in 1999. This is the reason Isa Ashiru Kudan, even though he neglects the area, feels entitled to their votes, as a matter of right. Should the LP candidate succeed in gnawing significantly into what Isa Ashiru Kudan believes is his taken support base, it would definitely change the way the area is treated in future by politicians
But the truth is that Isa Ashiru Kudan’s gubernatorial aspiration was always doomed from the beginning. In 2014, El-Rufai defeated him for the APC governorship ticket. And in 2019 general elections roundly defeated him as the candidate of the PDP. And since 2019, nothing has changed to warrant any optimism.
In their uneasiness and pain, the PDP candidate and those who hype this bunch of emptiness have tried, howbeit unsuccessfully, to demarket Comrade Asake among his Southern Kaduna folks. Mercenary columnists have written tons of low quality but highly obnoxious articles to disparage and ridicule Asake’s legitimate political aspiration. One of such offensive articles portrayed the LP candidate’s gubernatorial chase as “banality of evil”, almost implying that Asake, by running, has committed a crime against humanity, like Adolf Hitler who killed millions of people in gas chambers. They wailed that Asake has betrayed the trust of Southern Kaduna natives who elected him president of SOKAPU in 2019, and entrusted him with onerous task of championing their cause. They refuse to see his aspiration as an extension of the struggle, because they prefer playing second fiddle.
There is no way the venom being poured on Asake can be justified, for pursuing a legitimate political ambition, simply because such ambition is deemed capable of whittling down the vote haul of another candidate in Southern Kaduna. Other hack writers have insinuated that Asake and his supporters in the LP gubernatorial project are motivated by sheer greed. A baseless allegation, because there is no evidence that General T.Y. Danjuma has promised to fund any candidate from Southern Kaduna.
The foolishness of this trend of attack is apparent. How can an eminently qualified candidate recuse himself from pursuing a legitimate political ambition, just so he can pave the way for another candidate who’s nothing to offer? It is obvious that Isah Ashiru Kudan can never be the choice of majority of the electorate in Kaduna state for the gubernatorial seat in 2023, with or without the Asake/Labour Party factor.
On the other hand, the people of Southern Kaduna stand to gain a lot by massing up their votes for Asake. How so, you may ask? First, as noted earlier in this piece, the LP candidate can play the dark horse, by winning the governorship slot unexpectedly. This can happen if he gets a block vote from Southern Kaduna, and a solid backing of LP enthusiasts across the state.
Even if Asake eventually loses the guber contest to another eminent candidate, in the person of Comrade Ubah Sani of the APC, a solid backing of the people for Asake would strengthen his voice to speak for people. It will grease his elbows and increase his resolve to stay the course to protect the interest of the Southern Kaduna ethnic nationalities. This is something that Isah Ashiru is ill-equipped to do, even in the unlikely event of his becoming the governor.
Isa Ashiru Kudan and his PDP co-travelers, should team up with Jonathan Asake to present a united front against Uba Sani, the frontrunner in the Kaduna state gubernatorial race in 2023. Asake has a solid hold on his constituency than Isa Ashiru Kudan. This obviously would be unpalatable to him and his supporters. So, why prescribe for Asake, a pill that you are not willing to swallow?
Comrade Jonathan Asake should run. Let Isah Ashiru Kudan run. Of course, Comrade Uba Sani is already running ahead.
Ogbuagu writes from Kaduna.
